


Parenting 101

by kennagirl



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Family Bonding, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 19:45:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14625735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kennagirl/pseuds/kennagirl
Summary: With Bruce temporarily out of commission, Selina tries out her maternal skills.





	Parenting 101

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this semester's finals procrastination.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have read exactly one Batman comic in my life, but I have read a lot of fanfiction about these characters.

Selina twitched awake as the bedroom door opened. She was actually surprised she heard it, considering Bruce was still snoring like a chainsaw next to her. Normally, he was a quiet sleeper, waking at the slightest noise due to years of honed vigilante and father instincts. This night, a nasty hit from Scarecrow that turned into a nasty fall off a building combined with a mild dose of fear gas resulted in just enough sedative from Alfred so he wouldn't move around in his sleep and aggravate his injuries.

It was the injury that left her unsurprised that someone else in the house wanted to check on him. The figure she could dimly make out in the doorway was about six feet tall and more slender than the man lying in bed next to her, which meant—

"Dick?" she whispered. "Everything okay?"

He huffed and stepped closer to the bed, allowing her to see a bit more of him in the moonlight from the window. The small smile on his face was one she knew, as she still saw traces of it in the charming grin of Gotham's most eligible bachelor, before that in the mischievous smirk of a teenager who knew something that no one else around him did. It was a shy smile she had first met under an hors d'oeuvre table at a Wayne gala, one that said the nine-year-old wearing it knew he wasn't supposed to be doing this, but he couldn't bear to do what he was supposed to any longer.

"It's nothing, Selina," he whispered back. "I just wanted to check on him. Make sure he didn't end up piercing a lung with a busted rib."

She might believe that, but hanging around with a bunch of detectives means you pick up habits by association. She could see the slight, patchy dampness of his shirt, the way his fists were clenched like that might stop the shaking. And since Clark all the way in Metropolis could tell Bruce was still breathing based on his snores (hell, _Lois_ could probably hear it), that meant it was something other than filial duty leading the family's oldest child to actually open the door to check on his father.

"Nightmare?"

The smile turned into something more like a grimace, and he nodded. "They were falling, and then he was falling with them," he mumbled. She nodded as well, knowing what he was talking about. She may not have been around the whole time, but she'd been around enough to pick up on the trauma highlights for each member of the family.

To her still sleepy mind, there was an easy solution. "Wanna crawl in?"

He froze. "What?"

"Parenting 101," she said. "Kid has nightmare, sleeps with mom and dad. Well," she tilted her head, "step-mom and adopted dad. Still counts."

"You and Bruce are still engaged, so you don't legally have to care about me yet," he tried to joke. "Besides, I think that rule is for five-year-olds, not twenty-five-year-olds."

"There's no age limit on caring about your kids," she said gently. "And if you think that I haven't been worrying about you since you were running across rooftops in little green hotpants, you should think again."

He snorted, and she saw his fists unclench. Satisfied that she was helping at least a bit, she scooted close to the edge of the king size bed, leaving a space just big enough in the middle for Dick to snuggle in. "C'mon. I doubt there's room on his other side and we don't want to move him."

Dick hesitated a moment longer, then went to shut the bedroom door before he moved to the foot of the bed. As he crawled into the open space, she heard him mutter, "If you or Bruce get handsy with me in your sleep, you're paying for my therapy."

"Honey, if anyone in this house ever decides to get therapy, I will steal Bruce's credit card to pay for it myself."

He flopped down with a muffled laugh, and Selina smiled into the darkness. She might be new at this family thing, but she thought she was off to a pretty good start.


End file.
